FILM; Hollywood On the Lackawanna?

By JOHN MARCHESE

Published: May 27, 2007

ON a dreary weekday afternoon this winter, the burly, gregarious actor Paul Sorvino sat in a darkened hotel meeting room here, working on the next act in his long-running career in show business.

Sprawled in a plush upholstered armchair, glasses perched on his bulbous, slightly off-center nose, Mr. Sorvino, 68, watched himself act on a flat-screen monitor. By his own count it is his 113th film role, and at first glance it would seem a typical Paul Sorvino part: New York police lieutenant. But this big, lumbering cop is ready to leave a failing marriage, seduce a talented young male neighbor, compose an operetta called ''Homo Sapien'' and paint his toenails bright red.

The film, ''The Trouble With Cali,'' the story of a beautiful and talented young woman trying to survive her dysfunctional family, is Mr. Sorvino's debut as a feature film director. It also represents an initial small step in his grand -- and, at first glance, quixotic -- dream to turn Scranton, a former coal mining town 125 miles west of Manhattan, into a filmmaking center.

If all goes as planned, Scranton would not only be home base to Mr. Sorvino's own Miranda Films but also offer other filmmakers a full-service production house with soundstages, editing and looping rooms and a recording studio. All with costs a fraction of those in Los Angeles or New York.

As he tries to become a mini-movie mogul, Mr. Sorvino -- actor, opera singer, sculptor, Italian foods purveyor -- has found it necessary to try his hand at raising venture capital and lobbying politicians. He has already convinced the government of Lackawanna County, home to Scranton, to supply more than half of the $820,000 shooting budget for ''The Trouble With Cali.'' But negotiating partnerships with real estate developers and landing state financing for the $12 million to $15 million production facility are proving more difficult, bringing with them complaints of familial favoritism and even a run-in with Pennsylvania's governor, Edward G. Rendell.

The experience has not dimmed his ardor for turning Scranton into another Hollywood East. Playing studio boss may be his last job in a career that began as a car salesman in his native Brooklyn and led to acting roles like Detective Phil Cerreta in the early years of ''Law & Order'' and the deadly epicurean mob boss Paul Cicero in ''Goodfellas.''

''It's time for me to have my own studio,'' Mr. Sorvino said. ''It would be the best way for me to use the combination of all my skills.''

The unlikely story of Scranton as film center begins 25 years ago, when the town's most famous native son, the actor and playwright Jason Miller, hired Mr. Sorvino for a role in the feature film adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning drama, ''That Championship Season.'' The play and movie told the story of former members of a small-town high school basketball team who gather with their coach for yearly reunions to celebrate an unlikely state championship. Two decades on, the joy of their bright, youthful success is increasingly tarnished by the accumulation of middle-aged defeats.

Mr. Sorvino played the role of Phil Romano, a thrill-seeking businessman who bankrolls the political ambitions of a former teammate, the town's mayor, and also sleeps with his wife. The movie part reprised his Broadway performance, for which he had received a Tony nomination 10 years before. ''It was the best role I've had onstage,'' Mr. Sorvino said. ''It made my career.''

It also cemented a deep infatuation with the town. ''Paul Sorvino came to town 25 years ago to make that movie,'' said the mayor of Scranton, Christopher A. Doherty, ''and, basically, he never left.'' Mr. Sorvino made a number of friends around town during the filming of ''That Championship Season,'' including the Lackawanna County sheriff, who made him an official deputy. He has performed arias at a downtown theater, and he gets his cars from a local dealer, R. J. Burne (the latest being a Cadillac Escalade). Seven years ago, he bought a farm in the nearby Pocono Mountains and made it his home.

Mr. Sorvino's most recent connection to Scranton began when he offered to create and donate to the city a sculpture of Jason Miller. Mr. Miller had left a promising film acting career (he received an Academy Award nomination for his first film role, as Father Damien Karras in ''The Exorcist'') and come back to Scranton for good in 1990. He became the guiding spirit and director of the Scranton Public Theater, and he did occasional acting and screenwriting, including a lightly altered update of ''That Championship Season,'' which Mr. Sorvino directed for Showtime in 1999. Mostly, Mr. Miller drank.

''I told him all the time,'' Mr. Sorvino remembered, ''I'm worried about you, Jason. You've got to do something about the drinking. He never wrote anything valuable again. How could he do it? He destroyed his brain between the alcohol and the drugs.''

On a Sunday in May 2001, Mr. Miller fell to the floor in his favorite Scranton bar, Farley's, and died of a heart attack.

A few years after the funeral, a young Scranton lawyer who had been elected one of three commissioners of Lackawanna County was introduced to Mr. Sorvino.